Posted June 18, 2017
I didn't find a solution posted for the infamous "The application X11 could not be opened" problem on newer macOS (OS X) operating systems. So here's one. Correct me if I'm wrong etc. etc.
Long rant first - tldr below
The X11 error stems from multiple layers of compatibility built into the macOS version of the game. First and foremost, it isn't a native Mac app to begin with - it actually is the same Windows version that ships to, well, Windows. But it's wrapped into a compatibility container called Wineskin on Mac, which directs to the problem in hand.
Wineskin is distilled from a program called Wine (pun intended). It is a program that translates original Windows software on-the-run so they can be executed on Linux. Considering that both macOS and Linux share mutual roots on the ancient UNIX operating system, it's no wonder that Wine can be ported to Mac fairly easily.
Wineskin isn't actually the problem at hand, but more precisely, it uses a Linux standard window manager called x.org or X11. This program was shipped with Mac, too, up until 2016 or earlier, but Apple stopped shipping the software with macOS operating system and discontinued the X11.app altogether. (Note: rightly so, because it is an ancient piece of software. Linux, too, is making a transition to other window managing systems, but painfully slowly. Xorg is still widely used in Linux distros far and wide.)
But Wineskin, distilled from Wine, which in turn is native Linux software, uses X11 to create the application window on Mac, and so refuses to start the game altogether when that app is missing, printing an error and prompting to quit.
The solution
Directly from Apple:
"X11 is no longer included with Mac, but X11 server and client libraries are available from the XQuartz project. Apple created the XQuartz project as a community effort to further develop and support X11 on Mac."
XQuartz is not shipped with any Mac; it has to be downloaded and installed separately. Download from here: support.apple.com/en-us/HT201341
Installation is fairly straightforward. Open the .dmg-file once it finishes downloading, then double-click the .pkg-file to open and install. Installation prompts you to log out and back in to finalize the procedure.
Getting Wineskin to use XQuartz is slightly trickier, but again, still fairly easy. Having installed Fallout: Tactics, go to your Applications folder, locate Fallout Tactics, and instead of running the game, right-click and choose "Show contents". From here, run Wineskin. This opens Wineskin configuration.
From the application that opens, choose "Advanced", then navigate to "Options", and check the last checkbox: "Force use of system installed XQuartz instead of using built in WineSkinX11"
That should do it, actually. To test it, run, umm, "Test Run".
XQuartz acts weird in Fallout's case. It will first prompt you whether you want to run RamR or ArmR or something (I can't get it to ask me again ever again, so I don't remember precisely what was the thing). Hit cancel until it disappears - it takes about three times before it gives up.
Letting it play in the RamR-mode doesn't "break" the game or anything, but you'll hear the sounds without any video output or any possibility for input. Pressing opt-cmd-A (alt-Applekey-A) once returns you to desktop and twice returns you to the game, except this time everything works. It runs on fullscreen mode from thereon, but I couldn't get it to scale to screen, so I gave up - instead, it hung to the left upper corner of the screen annoyingly. You could fix this by changing your screen resolution manually to 1024x768 every time before starting the game, but I recommend disabling the RamR-mode to run the game windowed, giving you freedom to stop the game if it fails and to resize the window, essentially letting you play fullscreen, although with window borders visible.
Please note that the main menu or the intro videos never scale to any resolutions. Always continue all the way to the main game to see which effective resolution you're running. If you disable the RamR-mode, you will run whatever resolution your window is resized to.
When the test run is completed and successful, you can close Wineskin. Your settings are saved and the game runs correctly the next time. Enjoy.
ps. "But someone told me to install Wineskin Winery and update my blah blah blah!"
I tried this approach too. Updating the Fallout Tactics wrapper this way did work for me but game performance suffered notably. Changing engine used, however, breaks the game. Apparently (hopefully) the container runs a custom version engine written specifically for FO: Tactics. Don't fiddle with it, even if it worked for Fallout 1 or 2.
Cheers all!
Long rant first - tldr below
The X11 error stems from multiple layers of compatibility built into the macOS version of the game. First and foremost, it isn't a native Mac app to begin with - it actually is the same Windows version that ships to, well, Windows. But it's wrapped into a compatibility container called Wineskin on Mac, which directs to the problem in hand.
Wineskin is distilled from a program called Wine (pun intended). It is a program that translates original Windows software on-the-run so they can be executed on Linux. Considering that both macOS and Linux share mutual roots on the ancient UNIX operating system, it's no wonder that Wine can be ported to Mac fairly easily.
Wineskin isn't actually the problem at hand, but more precisely, it uses a Linux standard window manager called x.org or X11. This program was shipped with Mac, too, up until 2016 or earlier, but Apple stopped shipping the software with macOS operating system and discontinued the X11.app altogether. (Note: rightly so, because it is an ancient piece of software. Linux, too, is making a transition to other window managing systems, but painfully slowly. Xorg is still widely used in Linux distros far and wide.)
But Wineskin, distilled from Wine, which in turn is native Linux software, uses X11 to create the application window on Mac, and so refuses to start the game altogether when that app is missing, printing an error and prompting to quit.
The solution
Directly from Apple:
"X11 is no longer included with Mac, but X11 server and client libraries are available from the XQuartz project. Apple created the XQuartz project as a community effort to further develop and support X11 on Mac."
XQuartz is not shipped with any Mac; it has to be downloaded and installed separately. Download from here: support.apple.com/en-us/HT201341
Installation is fairly straightforward. Open the .dmg-file once it finishes downloading, then double-click the .pkg-file to open and install. Installation prompts you to log out and back in to finalize the procedure.
Getting Wineskin to use XQuartz is slightly trickier, but again, still fairly easy. Having installed Fallout: Tactics, go to your Applications folder, locate Fallout Tactics, and instead of running the game, right-click and choose "Show contents". From here, run Wineskin. This opens Wineskin configuration.
From the application that opens, choose "Advanced", then navigate to "Options", and check the last checkbox: "Force use of system installed XQuartz instead of using built in WineSkinX11"
That should do it, actually. To test it, run, umm, "Test Run".
XQuartz acts weird in Fallout's case. It will first prompt you whether you want to run RamR or ArmR or something (I can't get it to ask me again ever again, so I don't remember precisely what was the thing). Hit cancel until it disappears - it takes about three times before it gives up.
Letting it play in the RamR-mode doesn't "break" the game or anything, but you'll hear the sounds without any video output or any possibility for input. Pressing opt-cmd-A (alt-Applekey-A) once returns you to desktop and twice returns you to the game, except this time everything works. It runs on fullscreen mode from thereon, but I couldn't get it to scale to screen, so I gave up - instead, it hung to the left upper corner of the screen annoyingly. You could fix this by changing your screen resolution manually to 1024x768 every time before starting the game, but I recommend disabling the RamR-mode to run the game windowed, giving you freedom to stop the game if it fails and to resize the window, essentially letting you play fullscreen, although with window borders visible.
Please note that the main menu or the intro videos never scale to any resolutions. Always continue all the way to the main game to see which effective resolution you're running. If you disable the RamR-mode, you will run whatever resolution your window is resized to.
When the test run is completed and successful, you can close Wineskin. Your settings are saved and the game runs correctly the next time. Enjoy.
ps. "But someone told me to install Wineskin Winery and update my blah blah blah!"
I tried this approach too. Updating the Fallout Tactics wrapper this way did work for me but game performance suffered notably. Changing engine used, however, breaks the game. Apparently (hopefully) the container runs a custom version engine written specifically for FO: Tactics. Don't fiddle with it, even if it worked for Fallout 1 or 2.
Cheers all!
Post edited June 18, 2017 by kaneli2000
